“All Saints Church, Hastings: Sun and Mist" by Lucien Pissarro (1863-1944)

All Saints Church, Hastings: Sun and Mist

Lucien Pissarro (1863-1944)

1918

Oil on canvas

H 64.8 x W 53.3 cm

Collection: Tate

Accession number: NO4748; presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest, 1934

Pissarro was in Hastings for several months in early 1918, returning once again to finish this painting. [Commentary continues below. Mouse over the text for links.]

Kindly made available on the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (CC BY-NC-ND).

"He first of all covered the whole surface with paint, presumably after an outline drawing, but then worked for most of the time after this principally to represent the effect of light," explains David Fraser Jenkins. He had many setbacks, writing in his diary, for example: "Alas. wrong weather – east wind, had no sun, could not complete the old church!" (qtd. in Jenkins). It is also depressing to read that on one occasion he was stoned while painting it, presumably because he was seen to be a foreigner (although he was already a British citizen by now), and also that he had to avoid depicting the sea: "there was a rule against this, intended to prevent spying" (Jenkins). But the finished painting of the medieval church was well worth the effort. Burnished like the new leaves in the morning light, the building stands out boldly between the graveyard and the encroaching houses, mist lingering behind it as if to emphasize its solidity. — Jacqueline Banerjee

Bibliography

Jenkins, David Fraser. Catalogue Entry for All Saints Church, Hastings: Sun and Mist, 1918 (part of "The Camden Town Group in Context" project). Tate. Web. 14 August 2020.

Meadmore, William Sutton. Lucien Pissarro: Un Coeur Simple. New York: Knopf, 1963.

Created 14 August 2020